Paranoia will destroy us: Why Huawei and other Chinese tech is not spying

https://www.zdnet.com/article/paranoia-will-destroy-you-why-chinese-tech-isnt-spying-on-us/

by edwinjm • 7 years ago

53 74 7 years ago

This is a superb summary and a great call to action to get together and examine in depth the out of band data leaks and data management.

rbrtdrmpc-• 7 years ago

Huawei was under the radar of national security agencies (look at the S, not just the US) for years

RobertRoberts2• 7 years ago

I view this kind of caution against foreign powers (corporations are not separate from their governments in time of war) in the same way that the 2nd amendment protects us against tyranny.

And seatbelts from flying through wind shields.

You don't need it until you need it, and if you don't have it, it's too late.

National infrastructure that needs to work in a time of war must be nationally controlled by all nations.

"Spying" is a straw man argument, it's not about spying.

karmakaze• 7 years ago

Innthe age of information spying is the war.

cm2187• 7 years ago

Spying and computer attacks. All out wars between modern developed countries is badically impossible given our power of destruction.

RobertRoberts2• 7 years ago

That seems like saying "scouting is the war" from 1000 years ago. Perhaps the preparations for war though, and effective strategies during war?

When war starts up, nations don't have time/resources to update their networks/infrastructure.

inflatableDodo2• 7 years ago

I think the UK appears to have taken the pragmatic descision since Thatcher, that in anything serious these days it is either overrun or obliterated, so might as well buy the cheap stuff from our strategic rivals that will break down in an apocalypse and we can make some quick cash in the mean time selling off all the national technical base.

edit - Has been going on since long before Thatcher, to be fair. There's an old documentary about this subject by Spike Milligan, called 'The Bed Sitting Room' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de0w8tU0j1U

ptah• 7 years ago

yip, thatcher set in motion a process that has resulted in there being no uk companies with the expertise t o build a nuclear power station. the uk has to rely on french and chinese state owned companies for that

alimw• 7 years ago

Not sure what sense to make of this:

that in anything serious these days (World War III?) it is either overrun or obliterated (would be either overrun or obliterated?)

I tried clicking on your link to help me understand but it's to an hour-and-a-half long film (and not, I think, a documentary...)

walrus01• 7 years ago

It's fairly well known in the telecom and internet infrastructure field that Huawei stole Nortel's entire DWDM and optical transport product line and duplicated it. The ex Nortel HQ office building in the Ottawa area was found to be riddled with high tech bugs.

deugtniet2• 7 years ago

One point that I'm missing, is that the government of China can legally force any of their companies to start spying. And there would be no way that we would know.

Then often the argument becomes: But the US are already spying on us, so it's not too bad. Which is fair, but in the US, there are checks and balances and freedoms so that somebody has recourse. All these things are absent in China.

So the question is one of trust. Who do you trust more when they are spying on you: The US or China? For me as a European, this is definitely the former.

llamaz• 7 years ago

"there are checks and balances and freedoms"

you are so full of child like innocence, I envy you

tonyedgecombe• 7 years ago

There is no need to be so condescending.

ymolodtsov3• 7 years ago

Come on, the fact the Trump wasn’t able to achieve much of what he wanted (and even start those initiatives properly) confirms that. A country with less powerful social institutes would be in a worse shape.

mantas6• 7 years ago

Yet US got significantly more checks and balances and freedoms than China.

okintheory• 7 years ago

This is not a hypothetical question at all. Denmark is certainly asking this question, with the understanding that currently the US can tap anything they want in our communications infrastructure, and buying 5G from Huawei would instead give that power to the Chinese.

I think it is fortunate that Danish political consensus is converging toward avoiding Huawei infrastructure. American politicians might be as bad as Chinese leaders, but the former are sometimes held accountable, however meekly.

dogma11384• 7 years ago

What American company provides 5G carrier capabilities currently? I can’t think of any the only two that come in mind that aren’t Chinese are Alcatel-Nokia-Siemens-Lucent or w/e they are called now and Ericsson.

For the most part the US can compromise networks without needing to control the companies that provide the equipment they’ll just compromise the operator and the supply chain.

fit2rule3• 7 years ago

For me, as an ex-Australian who has lived in America and Europe, I don't trust either China or America with regards to their spying. Both countries have a long line of human rights violations in their history, and neither has shown a particular improvement in the last few decades.

The USA has committed untold strife in the world. It has toppled democratically elected governments and installed dictators, it has declared war on innocent nations and racked up hundreds of thousands of innocent victims in its rush to war glory. It has spent more on war in the last decade than any other nation, by far, while its people suffer under one of the most tyrannical, terrible health systems the modern world has constructed.

China has concentration camps. America has a thousand top-secret military prisons scattered around the globe.

The idea that one can be trusted over the other is utterly naive, and in light of the real evidence on the ground, a terribly ignorant point of view. I mean, we may be able to say, in all fairness, that there is a great chance that Huawei MAY spy for the Chinese government - but we can say for certainty that every single ISP in the USA HAS spied for the US Government, and we have no way to be sure it isn't still happening given the immense resources poured into making us look the other way as a civil society.

mantas6• 7 years ago

There's a massive difference between foreign country spying on you and your own democratically elected government spying on you.

Before you try to call US not democratic - don't. It is democratic. Especially when you compare to China. Of course, there's no perfect democracy and we can always work for more.

INTPenis2• 7 years ago

in the US, there are checks and balances and freedoms so that somebody has recourse. All these things are absent in China.

If the government really wants you they'll take you. And no amount of thoughts, prayers or picketing will free you.

We've seen examples of that in our generation, the last 20 years only when we've had a massive information network available. Imagine all the nameless poor sods who have disappeared before the internet.

deugtniet2• 7 years ago

I'm not naive about the limitations of the freedoms that are afforded to a citizen by the US government, or my government for that matter. We should have more freedoms and say into our government, and it should be more fair.

But here's the main point: It's a hell of a lot better than in China. Freedom and checks and balances are always on a spectrum. You're arguing that because there are limitations to your freedom, you might as well be totally in chains.

hef19898• 7 years ago

Now Europe is being bitten by the fact that there are no major European companies left. Siemens network branch was bought by Nokia and then there's Ericsson.

I'm just not sure why the EU is not making using domestic hardware a prerequisite. Would keep technological know how in the EU and reduce dependency. Not to speak about security.

dogma11384• 7 years ago

There are no US companies either afaik Qualcomm does not make carrier equipment they are happy making basebands and milking patents.

zaarn• 7 years ago

The checks and balances in the US of A only exist for Americans. They don't exist when you're not an American and exist even less if you're not even in America.

xbmcuser2• 7 years ago

Yeah tell that to all the people that were interned without any legal recourse by American intelligence. As someone that is not from the USA or China I think we should worry more about USA than China as the records shows it is USA that has kidnapped people from their own countries or 3rd country rather than China.

throwaway8879• 7 years ago

Or you know, we could worry about both the US and China? I come from a third-world country where my own government is looking to screw me over. There is some consolation in at least getting to choose who screws me over.

RobertoG2• 7 years ago

It surprise me that people take those allegations seriously. I mean, some spying is to be expected but not to justify the banning of all the company.

I thought it was obvious that this have nothing to do with spying. Some elements in the USA government and legislative have decided that China could be a threat to American only superpower status.

By the way, what happened with the Bloomberg allegations? (1)

(1) - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...

ymolodtsov3• 7 years ago

I’m not sure how 5G infrastructure or smartphones threaten the status of a superpower in any sense. Also, at this point Bloomberg is already an outlet that can’t be trusted as they haven’t provided any follow-up to the Super Micro story.

Yetanfou• 7 years ago

Smartphones are universal data collection devices, each of which is capable of gathering audio-, video-, RF-, location-, motion- and activity-based intelligence. Some add various other capabilities like air pressure, temperature and humidity to the list. Controlling this massive data source is massively valuable. Since each device contains a fairly powerful radio transmitter they can also be used as jammers by those who control the (closed, proprietary) RF firmware. All these devices are battery-powered so they can not just be disabled by pulling the plug (or the battery in 'modern' devices).

5G infrastructure adds another layer to the intelligence gathering infrastructure as well as an even more powerful jamming capability. Cell towers are equipped with battery backup as well so they can not easily be disabled by cutting the power to the tower.

Any party in control of these assets has strategic and tactical advantages over their adversary: strategic in that this allows for intelligence gathering, tactical in that this allows for precise targeting, jamming, denial of service, control of connected infrastructure for whatever purpose and more [1].

[1] Controlling mobile infrastructure over a wide area adds the prospect of using it to defy 'stealth' (low radar cross-section) by capturing off-axis reflections, etc.

z3t4• 7 years ago

I hope Huawei make a fully open source and hack-able mobile phone. I think that would sell like crazy on the western market where everyone hates Google, and ride the news wave and turn it around into their favor.

ymolodtsov3• 7 years ago

People don’t hate Google as much as you want to believe, people love Google Search/Maps/Gmail and everyone who wanted “a fully open source phone” could install MicroG for a long time already.

onlydeadheroes5• 7 years ago

Google is very different in the age of "gmail ain't done 'til firefox won't run"...

dogma11384• 7 years ago

You won’t get an open source baseband ever trough certification.

onlydeadheroes5• 7 years ago

Does that matter for Huawei?

coconut_crab2• 7 years ago

Maybe not yet, but it surely gives them the capability to spy later on.

My country, Vietnam, also banned Huawei equipment[1], and I don't believe it's pure paranoia. China has been taking every chances to spy on us, from illegally buy houses near Da Nang airport[2] (nearest airbase to Paracels) to 'tourists' walking near the Ministry of Defence to Advanced Persistent Threat targeting petroleum or maritime corporation (forgot the link right now).

We just don't trust China, and there're numerous reasons for that. This may sound racist but the stereotype of Chinese in Vietnam is extremely cunning, for better or worse, they will do everything to get to their goals as long as they don't get found out. China has 5000 years of history, they always play the long game.

Some quotations from "The Art of War" 2500 years ago:

"Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of business"

" The enemy's spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become converted spies and available for our service. "

[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/09/vietnam-doesnt-trust-hu...

[2] https://tuoitrenews.vn/society/32340/da-nang-suspects-more-l...

mnky9800n• 7 years ago

What do you think America is doing?

coconut_crab2• 7 years ago

America? I think Trump is a fool but some of his measures make sense. Regarding China, I feel that America misunderstood that China will play by the international rule (setup by western countries). No, they have their own rule and whatever 'International law' out there are written by upsurping countries and meaningless to them.

dna_polymerase2• 7 years ago

The alternative is relying on US tech. While I get the point that Huawei could be spying on us later on, the US is the one nation we know is spying on us.

All tech we use these days can be used for spying. The whole Huawei craze is just the U.S. realizing that they are no longer the only power to fear.

yesbabyyes• 7 years ago

The alternative is relying on US tech.

Huawei's biggest competitors are Ericsson (Swedish) and Nokia (Finnish).

crystaln2• 7 years ago

The US spying is subject to a strained but ultimately effective legal and constitutional system. There is no comparison between the US government's transgressions, and the Chinese government's complete unrestricted impunity to spy and infiltrate.

diminish3• 7 years ago

Huawei won't be spying but will also limit US spying. so it is a no go.

Currently there are 5 coountries USA, Russia, Israel and China playing the digital intelligence game with enough talent and companies.

On your mobile phone only those countries have a window for spying.

lostmsu2• 7 years ago

I don't think Russia is capable of spying on mobile phones. And have doubts about Israel too. How would they even get there?

diminish3• 7 years ago

Endless apps and vulnerabilities.

diminish3• 7 years ago

Huawei passed Apple in 2018 and Q12019. It threatens Samsung to become Number 1 soon. Oppo, Xiaomi and other Chinese smartphone manufacturers are also rising.

Old Nokia, HTC, Erickson, Sony, ( US allies like Europe, Taiwan, Japan ) are losing .

Only South Korea held on but is the next one to get pushed into insignificance.

Trump uses non free market tools to stop this growth.

https://www.counterpointresearch.com/huaweis-global-smartpho...

chvid• 7 years ago

First of all: This is not about "banning" Huawei in USA. Huawei is not in the US. It is about preventing the rest of the world in using Huawei.

The Trump administration has spent the last year or so trying to convince allies not to use Huawei and apparently has failed to do so. So now it does this.

Trump seems to think he can win an election on China; this may be the case. However doing so will probably hurt the longterm interest of the US.

Forcing millions of European Huawei users away from Google services is neither in the business interest of Google nor does it benefit the intelligence gathering capabilities of the US.

elp• 7 years ago

I don't think the President realizes just how much this will harm the USA in the long run.

He is basically telling the rest of the world to think long and hard before using any American tech in their products. Also his allies are increasingly less and less inclined to listen to him. The French have openly said they will continue to use Huawei. The Brits are going to use them anyway, the just didn't want the USA to know.

Edit: sorry. toned down the language.

moltar• 7 years ago

Just a reminder that Nortel, an ex-Canadian giant was “spied to death” by Huawei back in early 2000s. The stolen tech is the foundation of Huawei.

aaomidi• 7 years ago

I know people who work for Huawei in Iran. They are spying.

colinb• 7 years ago

I know with some certainty that US based companies provide source for communications software to US three letter agencies. I think it's strange to expect that a Chinese company would refuse to render the same services to analogous agencies in China.

Whether US companies would willingly insert changes at the behest of those agencies I do not know.

Paranoia will destroy us: Why Huawei and other Chinese tech is not spying

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